heartharmony.com.au

It’s election year in Australia and the first of the political debates on Health Reform just aired. One of the TV stations (channel 9) uses “the worm” to track real time audience response to comments during the debate.  It is a fascinating insight into people’s minds.  Channel 9 had 90 allegedly undecided voters hold keypads while they watched the debate and give feedback on whether they approved or disapproved of what was being said.  Individual scores were aggregated and then shown as a continuous “worm” to the TV audience at home. Individual audience members cannot see the worm and where it is heading, so the results are not influenced by peer group pressure.

Now there has been a lot of debate in the past about the algorithm that drives the worm and whether or not people really were uncommitted voters. Putting that aside and assuming Channel 9 learned from their debacle a few years back, the worm still gives some insight into how a cross section of people think.

So what did the worm respond to today? The clearest responses were when Tony Abbott (Opposition Leader) took the chance to put the boot into Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister).

Repeated negative comments about “can’t trust the parliament to install Pink Batts” and school hall rorts gathered more and more extreme negative responses. Each time Mr Abbott made the same negative comments, his approval scores plunged further. People are turned off by negativity and repeated negativity only serves to embed the feeling of being turned off.

People were also turned off by attempts to get a laugh at the expense of the other person – not everyone has the same sense of humour.

The worm jumped when concrete, practical information was presented from either side. People want specific details – they don’t want fluff.

The worm also took a major jump into the stratosphere when the Prime Minister stated that people really didn’t care who was to blame – they just wanted the health problem fixed.

What can business learn from the running of the worm today?  Simple really:

1. Be positive. If you don’t have something good to say with someone – shut up.
2. Be specific. Give your customers details and facts, not platitudes.
3. Don’t blame. Commit to fixing any issues you have without finding someone to blame.

If you get a chance to watch the debate, I certainly recommend it – not necessarily for what the politicians said, but to observe what people responded to.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter